“I didn’t want him to mess with your head when you were competing,” I offer as an apology. It was me who distracted Ollie, not Sean, in the end.
“Why?” he asks, staring at me. “Why did you care?”
“Because I care about you.” I look away. “I wish I didn’t sometimes, but I do.”
Ollie has a curious expression on his face as he looks at me. I vaguely notice that Helen, Jody and Ben are still nearby.
“Look, if you want to get back together with your ex-wife…” I begin.
He looks at me like I’m insane. “What? No.” He frowns. “We keep doing this, don’t we? Doubting each other.”
I nod slowly.
“And I’m sorry about the fighting. I promise it was out of character,” he replies. “I only hit him once.”
“Is that Australian for non-violence?”
Ollie gives a short bark of a laugh. “I just… Phoebe and I are done. Sean was blaming me for something I had nothing to do with.”
“Okay.”
“And I want to say something to you.” He looks vulnerable in a way that instinctively makes me want to flee. “It can be right here, if you want. Just listen. Please.”
I’m stuck now, frozen in place. I feel both grateful and embarrassed that my friends are listening.
“You know that I originally learned to dance for Eliana,” he says quietly.
So this is going to be about her. “Yes, I know.”
“And then you learned to dance for me. And nobody had ever done something like that for me before. Not even as a kid. I was always the one doing things for other people, learning to dance for Eliana, going into law for my dad. So when you did that, it was…intoxicating. I knew I was in love with you on our first date.”
The words take my breath away. I don’t know where to look. I notice Ben out of the corner of my eye, staring politely at the floor.
“When we danced on the street that time,” Ollie continues, “I was scared about how much I felt. And then your ex showed up, and he’s this handsome guitarist for the Big Lie, and I thought,Of course. Of course this is who she actually wants. There was no way someone that beautiful wouldn’t already have somebody.”
I catch Ben out of the corner of my eye mouthing to Jody, “The Big Lie?”
“So I pulled away,” Ollie says. “Because I was so sure you’d pick him. He had everything on his side, you know? Your kid, and the fucking motorcycle.”
“That wasn’t even his motorcycle.”
Ollie holds up a hand. “And when you told me you loved me, I felt like as soon as I said it back, you were going to disappear. Like you were waiting for me to get vulnerable and then you’d go. And I knew you deserved better, so I broke it off. But the point is, I stopped fighting for you. Remember when you told me that I quit the field after my divorce? I did the same thing with you, didn’t I? I let your ex-husband win because I couldn’t handle getting my heart broken. But I don’t want to do that. I want to fight for you.” He grimaces, looking at his bruised hand. “Not literally, I hope. But I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours wracking my brain for how I was going to prove that to you. I had these ideas about flying you to Paris or Fiji for a weekend...”
“Norway is nice,” Helen mutters behind me. It makes me laugh in spite of myself. Ollie throws her a glance and then continues.
“But I realized, that’s not what you have been asking for. You haven’t been asking me to take you on fancy weekends or to expensive restaurants.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t mind,” I say softly.
Ollie looks serious. “Yes, but what you told me you wanted the most was for me to be there, consistently, and not change my mind. You wanted me to keep showing up, over and over, the way your ex never did. And the problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to do that without acting like a stalker and showing up at your house all the time.”
“Ollie,” I begin.
“Let me finish. Here’s what I’m proposing. What if I move to your neighborhood? So that I can be there if you want to get an early dinner before you put Hannah to bed? And so I can help if you need someone to pick her up because your work ran late? What if I could help you with little things, and errands, and give you more time to relax, and spend time with your kid… and hopefully spend time with me?”
My brain is struggling to compute what he is offering. He would move to my neighborhood so he can help pick up my drycleaning? Nick expected me to move to Atlanta when he wanted to try again.
Ollie continues softly. “I want to prove to you that I’m capable of doing something real, not just for one weekend but every day. For as long as you need me. And I want to prove it over and over again. Will you let me do that?”
